


Demon

by Akisame8



Series: Horizons [2]
Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 16:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11855412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akisame8/pseuds/Akisame8
Summary: On a mission, Avon finds himself investigating the ruins of a ancient church. When an ominous mist rolls in, things take a weird and unexpected turn when he is greeted by an old enemy—one whom he's already killed.





	Demon

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for a monthly fanfic challenge on Horizon, based on an [idea prompt.](http://www.blakes7online.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=1812&rowstart=0)  
> 

"You let him go in alone? Orac just gave me the history of this gods-forsaken place and we need to get him out of there now!"  
  
    "As if I can stop him doing whatever he likes," Tarrant snapped. "I turned around and he was gone. And he still doesn't answer his wrist-comm."  
  
    Tarrant began to lunge in the direction of the fog-shrouded church ruins, but Cally grabbed his arm with a vehement, "NO!" When he spun to her in bafflement, she said, "Let me try to reach him another way."  
  
    "Does this mean using your telepathy and possibly getting yourself possessed again?"  
  
    She gave him a hard, distinctly Avon-like glare. "Tarrant, shut the hell up. Just let me do my work."  
  
* * *  
  
    When the mist finally parted, Avon could see the looming silhouettes of stone arches and the jagged edges of walls. Two decomposing stone turrets glared at him with windows like empty eye sockets. The religious statues, despite their faces having been rubbed away over this planet's centuries, also added to the sensation that he was under scrutiny. Wiping the clammy mist off his forehead, he studied the arches, imagining possible snipers clinging there like spiders. Mutoids might be lurking behind the deteriorating sandstone pillars. There was no sound, not an animal scrabbling nor a dry branch rustling in any sort of breeze. There were no breezes at all, in fact, only the fog—this was clearly a dead place. But yet someone, _something,_ was here with him.  
  
    Gun drawn, he continued his stealthy perusal of the silent ruins as he strode through the murk.  
  
    "I know you're here," he said in a soft growl to his watcher. "Don't be shy."  
  
    Then something began to form in the mist in front of him— a black pillar the size of a man. Avon started, despite himself, staggering back two steps before regaining his composure and fixing his gun at the materializing shadow. The shape resolved itself into something much more solid and black-clad, a bit like himself, but taller, with an eyepatch and a wolfish grin, fixing him with a single glinting eye.  
  
    "You're dead," Avon pronounced.  
  
    "I know," said Travis, rolling his one eye. "You killed me."  
  
    Avon aimed his gun. "Shall we try for an encore?"  
  
    Travis smirked. "You're not frightened by me in the least, are you?"  
  
    "Hardly. You're obviously an illusion of some sort, pulled from my subconscious. I'm too rational to believe in the supernatural."  
  
    "So demons are out of the question as well?" Travis said, folding his arms in calm amusement.  
  
    "Oh, I am well-acquainted with demons." Avon bared his teeth. "Now get out of my way. I am presently engaged in a search and you're annoying me."  
  
    Travis lifted his chin, casually looking over his shoulder. He stood there as adamant as one of the blank-faced church statues. But was it a trick of the fog or had one of the statues behind him moved, gained a face, begun creeping toward them?  
  
    The new figure did not acknowledge Avon at all. Instead, it turned and made a slow path into the open church corridor and vanished into the shrouding mist once more.  
  
    "BLAKE!" Avon began to move after him but Travis neatly stood in his way, a black monolith.  
  
    At that exact same time, another voice, vaguely recognizable, was coming from nowhere at all, an insistent echo off the crumbling stones. _**AVON! Avon, can you hear me?**_ The surprise and sudden din of it made him gasp in pain.  
  
    "Get out of my way!" he shouted at the man with the eyepatch who might only be an hallucination. "Let me go to him!"  
  
    A malicious grin spread across Travis' face. He wagged a finger, shaking his head. "Not advisable. Following Blake is foolhardy. It has been my own very painful lesson, thank you very much for that."  
  
    Avon hissed, "That's it. I've had enough." He strode with purpose directly at Travis with the intent of passing right through him; and just as he suspected, Travis dispersed into shreds of black mist all about him. However, when he spun around, he found the specter re-forming again into the man he had killed.  
  
    "Avon, you will not get past me. I won't allow it." Dead-Travis was certainly more genteel than the living homicidal version had been.  
  
    Avon muttered to himself like an incantation: "Logic. Maintain your logic."  
  
    "How refreshing to see you so confused," Travis grinned. "But I _am_ your logic. You know because I'm dead and can't possibly be here, agreed?"  
  
    Avon ground his teeth. "Yet somehow you're still standing in my way."  
  
    Travis tilted his head. "What if I told you you, Avon, that you were the main piece on the board of someone's great game? I got knocked off the board early on, as you well know. What if I told you I was, in truth, here to warn you?"  
  
    "I'd tell you AGAIN to _get out of my way."_  
  
    "Avon, let's put our animosity behind us and let me offer you some friendly advice. Don't go after him."  
  
    The figure of Blake, as if summoned, began to walk towards them now, reappearing through the fog. He was staggering this time and was apparently wounded. He finally seemed to see Avon and he raised his hand, his voice hoarse. "Avon, you're here at last. No time. Come quickly. We need to go this way."  
  
    "Blake is dead, " Travis said, shrugging.  
  
    "No. No, he's not. He's been sending me signals..." Avon fought a rising panic he had not known in a decade. "He's... right there."  
  
    Travis looked pitying. "Oh, Avon, someone's got you fooled. A new experience for you? Oh no, that's right. Poor Anna. Or was that _Bartholomew...?"_  
  
    Avon lifted his gun and shot Travis in the chest: the apparition exploded and flew apart into feathers of shadow. Panting, Avon looked at Blake standing there before him. He could see clearly now that despite being wounded, Blake was smiling at him. He seemed unaffected by the spectacle of the shattered demon-Travis. In fact, he looked quite pleased.  
  
    He had no idea why he did it, but Avon dropped his gun. He took a step forward.  
  
   _**AVON!**_ That deafening voice in his head was painful now. It made him cringe. _**Avon! Whatever you're seeing right now is a trick! The fog is hallucinogenic.**_  
  
    "Cally?"  
  
     _**Turn on your comm.**_  
  
    The Blake-thing looked confused. It was bent over and seemed to have a gaping wound in its chest, blood soaking through the fingers clutched at its breast. Avon looked stupidly at his comm and then flicked it on: "Cally."  
  
    "Avon, thank the gods. Get the hell out of there."  
  
    "Blake's here. He's bleeding..."  
  
    "No, Avon, Blake is not there. It's a trick. Don't look at him. Just walk away and follow my voice. I'll help you telepathically as well."  
  
    "He—"  
  
     _**Avon. Use your logic.**_ Cally's voice seared into his mind.  
  
    Travis was at his side again then, looming, grinning and solid. "You heard the lady. I'm currently the personification of your logic for this evening. I know— bizarre and sort of funny, isn't it?"  
  
    Choosing to no longer engage in a warped conversation with the one-eyed man, Avon picked up his gun off the ground. With calm indifference, he turned on his heel and walked back through the church ruins, trying to focus only on Cally's directions. Travis followed behind with languid amusement, the tapping of his boots on the flagstones the only sound besides Cally's voice on the wrist-comm. The churchyard dissolved behind him, tendrils of mist recoiling like snakes around the decaying arches. A last clammy curtain of fog assailed him in an attempt to confuse him, but he continued forward, impassive. He pretended not to hear Blake's cries for help somewhere far behind him, or Travis' quiet laughter next to him. The one-eyed man followed him like his own shadow.  
  
    "We're more alike than you know," Travis said. "We really should talk like this more often."  
  
    Suddenly Avon was attacked on both sides, his arms firmly grasped by his assailants. He began to twist and kick out when a familiar voice shouted in his ear: "Avon, relax! It's me, Tarrant!"  
  
    "And Cally!" came the voice at his other arm. He felt himself sag with undisguised relief.  
  
***  
  
    "The fog is an airborne lifeform. Bio-priests centuries ago created it as a psychic trap for dissidents, and lured them here to this cathedral. They meant to terrify the so-called 'sinners' by letting them use their own minds against themselves. Unfortunately, the chemical got loose in the planet's atmosphere, caused mass hysteria... and you can see what's left of their civilization." Cally gestured at the turrets and arches still protruding above the fog. "It seems to have drifted back into the church's ruins where it was created. This is its nest."  
  
    "There were 'statues' inside," Avon murmured with grim realization. "They must be the calcified remains of the fog's victims."  
  
    He was very silent then. Tarrant asked, "What else did you see in there, Avon? I imagine it was tremendous." He grinned in his annoying, perfect way and Avon once more resisted the urge to break Tarrant's kneecap.  
  
    "Nothing. They did not manage to frighten me. My logic took over."  
  
    "Ah, of course. With Cally's help," smirked Tarrant.  
  
    "Yes," Avon said in a rueful voice, facing her. "With Cally's help." Cally was alarmed to see that he was trying to hide the fact that he was trembling: a delayed reaction, no doubt, caused by his experience in the ruined churchyard. She touched his mind: _**Are you all right?**_ and Avon flinched as if she had physically assaulted him. He glared at her only for a moment and then finally winced.  
  
    "Your mental voice hurts," he muttered and turned away.  
  
    He refused to look back at the mist-shrouded ruins as he strode off. "Demons, Tarrant. We all have our demons. Even you."  
  
    Cally _did_ glance back, however. She squinted and could suddenly make out the form of a a tall, black-clad man with an eyepatch waving to her and grinning. The most horrible thing about it was that he looked almost friendly. Her blood congealed. "Right, that's it. We're done here."  
  
    She was the one to make the hasty command.  
  
    "Orac, three to teleport. Immediately."

**Author's Note:**

> The original prompt for this story was the idea that Avon and Travis meet in the ruins of an ancient church. My idea took a supernatural direction and I quickly went over the 500-word limit (as usual.) I can't help it: I get carried away with dialogue. 
> 
> [Here's the link to Horizon](http://www.blakes7online.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=1812&rowstart=0) and the other stories inspired by this prompt:  
> 


End file.
